Meet Mark

Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Sisson. I’m 63 years young. I live and work in Malibu, California. In a past life I was a professional marathoner and triathlete. Now my life goal is to help 100 million people get healthy. I started this blog in 2006 to empower people to take full responsibility for their own health and enjoyment of life by investigating, discussing, and critically rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness...

Evolution of the Tagline

While it’s admittedly not health-related, I feel I must share with my readers the trials and tribulations of creating a blog tagline. It’s gotten to a point where it’s beginning to take a toll on my keyboard, so while no one’s health is being harmed in this painful process, I have to say, I really do miss the E, L, S, V, C and A keys.

This entire effort (cue trumpet: Ultimate Tagline), otherwise known as ongoing torture akin to being slowly kneaded to death by your daughter’s cat, has consumed more time than I care to admit. Tell a visitor, in four seconds, what your blog is about and why they ought to read it. Yes, friends, sit-up king Sisson of low-carb healthy living has been foiled by the quest for ten great words. Frankly, I’d rather go back to competing in Ironmans than face the task of writing the Ultimate Tagline.

The Bees, Lord bless ’em, sensing my intensity – or maybe just desperation – even started a tagline wiki for all of us to generate a running list of ideas. At this point, I’m considering just making the tagline a hyperlink to the wiki. One of my Bees even took a Personal Day with the simple justification of “the tagline” before dejectedly shuffling home. That, with the lone tear, was too much. I promptly gave her a vacation and a raise.

I know it’s fine for a tagline to be matter-of-fact. Simple. Many blogs don’t even have taglines. But the challenge exists; therefore, I must hack it.

I present, for your consideration, perusal, and amusement, the evolution of the MDA tagline:

[really long list of “exciting!” adjectives] (No one can remember them.)
Better than bran muffins. (Oh, wait. Everything is better than bran muffins.)
It beats bran. (So does a pestle and mortar.)
Will blog for health. (MOTO.)
Putting the zing in amazing. (The only thing amazing about this is how lame it is.)
Shaking the tree is just the beginning. (…of a really bad tagline.)
Health doesn’t have to rock your world to shake your tree. (Focus group says: too Mae West!)
Doing my part to p*ss off the self-righteous health establishment! (Health establishment intact, valued viewers offended.)
Who got the juice? (I don’t even drink juice.)
Get the juice. (Again with the hypocrisy. Sisson, get it together, man!)
Do something right. (Such as penning a good tagline, for example.)
If you don’t love my blog, I’ll give you an apple. (This could get expensive. There’s the foodborne illness issue with which to contend.)
If you don’t love my blog, I’ll hit you with an apple. (Focus group says: too aggressive! I say: I think we can work with it.)
Juice. Pucker. Bite. Flavor. (Great. I’ve described an apple.)
Welcome to the Primal side of health. (Eden called: they want their archetype back.)
Join me in my crusade to take the boredom out of health! (Nearly 500 passionate subscribers now, but is this… crusadery enough?)
Doing my part to take the boredom out of health! (Revision of sentence structure does not an award-winning blog tagline make.)
Pith never tasted so good. (Oh, wait…pith never tasted good, period.)
Doing my part to create a better tagline. (Focus group says: refreshing honesty! I say: what am I paying you for?)

Any suggestions, Apples? I don’t really have a focus group, of course, but I do have all of you (much better, in my opinion). Your emails, suggestions and comments always make my day. So how about this: help me come up with a winner and I’ll give you a free month of the Damage Control Master Formula (Kryptonite free, naturally).

Although, what really needs damage control is that darn tagline. Sisson out.

What do you think? Gimme a shout at my new email: mdsisson1-at-gmail-dot-com. (The old one is fine, too, but I’m really liking Gmail.)
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